1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to communication systems, and specifically, to a communication system for providing dedicated communications and switched communications over a packet network.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A dedicated communication link is a direct non-switched communication link exclusively dedicated for a customer's use between specified points. Dedicated communication links are typically high capacity multi-channel communication links that provide dedicated services from one or more customer-specified locations to one or more other customer-specified locations. One example of a dedicated communication link is a T-1 digital transmission line having 24 channels that operate at 1.54 megabits per second. Often however, customers desiring dedicated services do not require the full capacity of these multi-channel communication links. In this case, a digital cross connect provides a channel capacity within the multi-channel link for dedicated communications, while the remaining channel capacity is used to carry switched communications. Some examples of the dedicated communications include private line communications between two customer sites, Internet Protocol (“IP”) communications for an IPE network and frame relay communications for a frame relay network. Some examples of the switched communications include switched voice, video, and data.
Digital cross connects allow dedicated communications and switched communications to be transmitted from the customer premises to a network edge over a single multi-channel communication link. FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a communication system that provides dedicated and switched communication services. On FIG. 1 the customer premise equipment (“CPE”) 100 is connected to a digital cross connect 101 by a T-1 communication link 110. The T-1 communication link 110 carries bundled communications including dedicated and switched communications for the CPE 100. The digital cross connect system 101 is provisioned to cross-connect incoming digital signal one (“DS1”) communications within a digital signal three (“DS3”) communication link to outgoing DS1 communications. The digital cross connect system 101 receives the bundled communications from the CPE 100 as well as other communication links (not shown) in the DS3 format and converts the communications to a DS1 format. The digital cross connect 111 receives the DS1 communications from the digital cross connect 101 and converts the DS1 format to a digital signal zero (“DS0”) format to groom the private line communications, groom the IP communications, groom the frame relay communications, and groom the switched communications. Grooming repackages DS0 communications into different outgoing DS1 communications. The private line communications are then provided to the CPE 105, while the IP communications are provided to the IP network 108, the frame relay communications are provided to the frame relay network 109, and the switched communications are provided to the interworking system 103. Simultaneously the CPE 100 provides a call setup signaling message to the call processor 106, possibly over the signaling link 112. The call processor 106 processes the call setup signaling message from the CPE 100 to generate a routing instruction for the interworking system 103. In response to the routing instruction, the interworking system 103 packetizes the switched communications and transmits the packetized communications over the packet network 104 to the called destination.